"Yes," he said, looking at her with a faint smile. "I think you will be
pleased. And I----"
He paused.
"Well?" she asked.
"If the prophecy comes true, I shall spend my time looking back at the
old days, and sighing for the Buildings, for that sunny room of yours,
with the tea kettle singing on the hob, and----Has Dick come back from
Angleford?"
Nell nodded.
"And the man? Has he been committed for trial?"
"Yes," she replied. "But I don't want to speak of that--it isn't good
for you."
He was silent a moment; then he said: "Do you know, I've got a kind of sneaking pity for the man. He wanted
the diamonds badly--he needed them more than the countess did. What
would it have mattered to her if he had got off with them? And he risked
his liberty and his life for them. A man can't do more than that for the
thing he wants."
Nell tried to laugh.
"I have never listened to a more immoral sentiment," she said. "I think
you had better go to sleep again. But I understand," she added, as if
she were compelled to do so.
"And I fancy the reflection that he made a good fight for it--and it was
a good one; he was a plucky fellow!--must console him for his failure.
After all, one can only try."
"Try to steal other people's jewels," said Nell.
"Try for what seems the best--what one wants," he said dreamily. "I
wonder whether he would have been satisfied if he had got off with, say,
a small box of trinkets?"
"I should imagine he would consider himself very lucky," said Nell, her
eyes downcast.
"Do you think so?" asked Falconer quietly. "Somehow, I fancy you're
wrong. He would have hankered after those diamonds for the rest of his
life, and no amount of small trinkets would have consoled him for having
missed them. Though I dare say, being a plucky fellow, he would have
made the best of it."
Nell began to tremble. The parable was plain to her. The man beside her
had failed to win the woman he loved, and would try to make the best of
the poor trinkets of fame and success. Her lips quivered, and her eyes
drooped lower.
"Perhaps--perhaps he would have tried for the diamonds again," she said,
almost inaudibly.
He looked at her with a sudden light in his eyes, a sudden flush on his
white face.